


Aftermath

by koalathebear



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: F/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-21
Updated: 2013-08-21
Packaged: 2017-12-24 05:31:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/935968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/koalathebear/pseuds/koalathebear
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Everyone else has written their take on what happens after the film ends, so here's mine.</p><p> </p><p>  <i>There was no artifice and subterfuge; they had been in each other's minds and thoughts. Even before the Drift, there had been a strange, arcane awareness between them. He should have resented the intrusion, the invasion of privacy but he welcomed her into his mind and thoughts in the same way he respectfully stepped among her memories.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Aftermath

_Today, we are cancelling the apocalypse …"_

The memory of Pentecost's prophetic words echoed in Raleigh's half waking mind. The cheers, anticipation, the exhilaration and the fear. 

From the familiar smell filling his nostrils, Raleigh knew where he was without even opening his eyes. The smell of the disinfectant, the strong smell of soap betrayed the sterile surroundings of the Hong Kong Shatterdome infirmary. He hated hospitals and he particularly hated lying in a hospital bed. After the battle with Knifehead … after Yancy's death, a broken and battered Raleigh had been retrieved from the beach where he had collapsed. He had lain in a hospital bed for some time, locked inside his own grief and pain, breathing in and breathing out, memorising the smell of the infirmary and saying nothing to anyone. They had steered him towards a variety of shrinks and grief counsellors but Raleigh had sat there sullenly, saying nothing, his face shuttered and cold and his heart burning with loss.

Now here he was again in a damned infirmary, being poked and prodded. He and Mako had been examined for radiation poisoning, any signs of Kaiju Blue and also any ill-effects of the oxygen deprivation. Mako had been discharged first, leaving reluctantly with a glance over her shoulder and a promise to return to see him as soon as she could.

"I am not staying here, sir – I feel fine" Raleigh had muttered, glaring around the infirmary irritably.

Marshall Hercules Hansen had glared down at the stubborn young man lying in the bed. "You're not going anywhere, son until the doctors have checked you out completely and made sure that you're not any more brain damaged than you already are."

"I already agreed to the damned brain scan," he bit out. After Yancy's death, he had refused the mustering-out brain scan requested to analyse his ability to pilot Gipsy Danger after loss of neural handshake – he had just wanted out of there as fast as possible. This time, he had reluctantly agreed to the scan.

"Yes, we were surprised to find out from the scan that you actually have a brain," Herc said dryly. "You know, you actually need a brain in the first place before oxygen deprivation can cause any damage, mate," Herc had told him. There had been a joking smile on his face that hadn't managed to reach his exhausted and reddened eyes. The loss and the sorrow in the older man's gaze was something that Raleigh understood well and Herc knew it. There was now a bond between the two men who had lost a loved one in battle. 

"I'm very sorry about Chuck, sir. He died a hero."

"I know," Herc said briefly, his tired eyes closing momentarily as he thought about his final moments with his son. "All of our dead …" Herc had said to him. "We have no bodies to bury." His face had tightened in pain and Raleigh had flinched, remembering Knifehead rearing up and smashing a single claw through the gap in Gipsy Danger’s Conn-Pod, the claw digging around, shredding metal and blacking out all electronics on that side. He remembered the raw terror of the moment … and then Yancy being gone, the neural handshake broken and his brother's presence going from his mind and life forever.

He knew that there was nothing that he could say that could comfort Hansen for the death of his son. There were the usual platitudes, but Raleigh knew from experience that these did nothing to ease the pain, so he remained silent and merely let his quiet gaze convey his sympathy.

In 2020, when Yancy had been killed, more than anything else – Raleigh had wanted to die. He had lost everything and there had been nothing left for him in the world. Now, there was a glimmer of hope – a possible future. His eyes flickered beneath their closed lids as he allowed his thoughts to dwell on Mako …

The thought of her was like a warm embrace. In his mind, he saw her dark hair, her huge dark eyes … She was lithe and soft, tough and smart. He had never been touched so deeply or understood someone so completely – even before the neural handshake. Her memories were now his and vice versa and rather than terrifying him, the thought comforted him and made him yearn for things that he had never considered were possible for him.

 _There is no time to celebrate … we also have no time to grieve_

His eyes snapped open and he stared up at the ceiling of the infirmary blindly. Despite the odds, they had been successful in sealing the Breach, Humanity had been saved – for now.  
There was definitely time to grieve now. 

Sitting up, he pulled off his oxygen mask irritably and pushed himself to his feet. The world spun slightly at the suddenness of his movements but he ignored the faint dizziness that he experienced as he rose from the bed.

He was alone in the infirmary and he looked around in vain for his clothes or his shoes. Swearing beneath his breath, he slid his bare feet into the slippers beside the bed and strode out of the infirmary towards the area that housed the sleeping quarters.

Most Shatterdome personnel were asleep but those taking the night shift who saw him, gave him a respectful nod or a salute in acknowledgement of what he had achieved. What all of them had achieved.

He reached the door of Mako's room but even as his hand reached out to turn the handle, he stopped and turned around. He walked to his own room instead, opening the heavy metal door. He stared into the darkness of his Spartan room – a pale-coloured rectangle with a bunk and a few pieces of furniture, his duffle bag in the corner and his photographs pinned to the wall.

On the bunk, curled up with one of his heavy knitted sweaters was Mako, asleep and clearly dreaming. He closed the door behind him and walked over to the bunk, sitting down on the edge and stared down at her sleeping face intently. There were fresh tears on her face but he didn't need to see them to know that she had been crying. He wiped them away gently with his thumb, his hand lingering on her smooth skin with an almost hesitant reverence.

She had been so brave … so resourceful and determined. In his wildest dreams, he couldn't have asked for a better co-pilot. His fingertip touched her full lower lip lingeringly. He knew what it had cost her to see the man she had revered as a father die before her eyes. He had been her commanding officer, her _sensei_ and the man who had rescued her as a child from the monster Onibaba.

When Yancy had died, Raleigh had not thought that it would possible to feel the closeness that Drifting brought ever again. Yancy's death had been the death of part of Raleigh himself but when Mako Mori had come into his life, the healing process had finally begun. 

Raleigh slid into the hard narrow bunk beside her, pulling the blanket over the top of them both. He pulled her into his arms, tangling his legs with hers so that she was curved against him, skin to skin. She curled into his embrace as if she belonged there and as if they had embraced a million times before. She was warm and soft in his arms and he closed his eyes and breathed deeply of her scent. She wore no perfume except the same standard issue soap that he himself used – along with all other PPDC personnel - and yet she smelled beautiful to him.

His lips brushed her smooth cheek in a kiss, tasting the salt of her tears and she opened her eyes and stared at him without any shock or surprise.

"What are you doing here?" she asked him pointedly.

"It _is_ my room, you know" he pointed out, his mouth quirking into a smile.

"You're supposed to be in the infirmary," she told him forcefully.

"I woke up with a strange feeling that there was someone in my bed," he whispered, brushing her hair from her face and resisting the temptation to pull her even closer. "Crying alone … I'm so sorry about the Marshall."

"I wasn't crying about him," Mako told him, surprisingly. 

At his startled, questioning look, she lowered averted her gaze from his and spoke in a low, even voice. "I'm sad he's gone … I feel … empty …but I know that that's the way he would have wanted to die – in battle, fighting." Her voice was calm. "He lost his sister in the first year of the Kaiju War – against Trespasser in San Francisco. His co-pilot Tamsin died of cancer in a hospital ... _Sensei_ would _never_ have wanted to die in a hospital bed…"

"I can understand that," Raleigh said softly. "Gotta say, I feel the same way." His thumb brushed over her tear stains. "Then who were these for?" he asked her gently.

"For the _baka_ who is my co-pilot!" she said with asperity, her dark eyes flashing.

"Huh?" Raleigh demanded, in shock, wishing for a moment that he had the benefit of the neural connection to understand what was going on in her head right now.

"Sacrificing yourself for me? That was _not_ the plan," she told him accusingly.

"Oh, that," he said, grimacing a little, his blue eyes very serious. "It was never going to be any other way, Mako."

"You gave me your oxygen," she said in a low voice. 

"Your line was cut …" He remembered it all too well. He had snapped his own oxygen line loose, feeding it to Mako. She had been barely breathing, succumbing quickly to the combination of oxygen deprivation and the overload from  
the damage Gipsy Danger had suffered.

"You activated the Crisis Command Matrix – transferring Jaeger operations to a single Ranger," she accused him, her voice shaking and her accent very strong with her heightened emotions. 

"Guilty."

"Do you know how stupid that was? You could have suffered neural damage. You could have been killed."

"I know."

"We were supposed to be in this together … you weren't supposed to try to kill yourself."

He lifted an eyebrow. "Only the Japanese are allowed to be heroically suicidal?" he asked her.

"That's not funny."

"No it's not … I wanted you to live, Mako…" he said softly. "I've lost a co-pilot before … " He closed his eyes, the pain and sorrow washing over him again as if it was yesterday. "I am not going to let that happen ever again."

_It’s all right now. I can finish this. All I have to do is fall. Anyone can fall. You have to live._

She closed her eyes, remembering his words and the way he had ejected her from Gipsy Danger … sent her to safety while he remained behind in danger.

"The radiation alone could have killed you."

"You know the shielding is much better these days," he assured her. "I was mostly safe inside Gipsy … and I've been taking my Metharocin. The pods are also shielded – the doctors say that I'm in the clear," he told her, his voice calm and reasonable, trying to persuade and rationalise with her rather than comfort her.

"What if it was the other way around? Would you want to be the one left behind?" she demanded of him fiercely, her eyes flashing. 

She was right. He would rather have died with her rather than face the emptiness left behind by the death of a loved one. He had lost his parents, his sister, his brother … to have lost Mako would have been the end as far as he was concerned.

"No – but it wasn't like that Mako. By sending you to safety, there was enough oxygen to get me through – it gave me a real shot at finishing the mission."

Mako was reasonable and his logic was persuasive. He saw from her face that he had satisfied her to some extent and defused the situation.

He pressed his lips against her forehead for a moment. "I've got no one left in the world except you, Mako … I'd have done anything … _anything_ to save you," he told her in a husky voice.

"And I feel the same," she told him, shaking her head. "Don't decide things like that without talking to me, Raleigh," she whispered, her dark eyes huge and reproachful. He brushed her hair from her face, fingertips lingering on the deep blue strands framing her pale face.

"I won't," he promised. There was no artifice and subterfuge; they had been in each other's minds and thoughts. Even before the Drift, there had been a strange, arcane awareness between them. He should have resented the intrusion, the invasion of privacy but he welcomed her into his mind and thoughts in the same way he respectfully stepped among her memories.

She cupped his face in her hands and kissed him softly and hesitantly. The kiss was awkward and unpractised, but that didn't matter. His body responded immediately, desire and arousal hitting him like a fist. His voice was rough even as he pulled her closer, his hands sliding beneath her t-shirt to touch her warm, silken skin. He lowered his head, trailing kisses along her throat. His tongue flickered against her skin and she closed her eyes for a moment, overwhelmed by the sensations that that invoked. 

Her breasts were pressed against his chest and he felt himself hardening even further against her thighs. As she had moved against him, her shirt had ridden up over her hips. Unable to help it, he had smoothed his hand over her bare hip, pulling the shirt higher to her waist. 

He pulled her closer and buried his nose in her sweet-smelling hair. Her lips grazed the column of his neck. Raleigh closed his eyes, desire coursing through his veins.

He cupped her face before slowly lowering his mouth to hers, kissing her, as soft as the touch of a feather, his tongue slipping against her lips and arousing her. Her mouth opened beneath his as his tongue thrust and explored. She tasted him, moaning and writhing beneath him responsively.

He angled his head, brushed his lips over hers, enjoying the feel of her, easing her into the increasing heaviness of their embrace. He licked at her, his tongue sliding against hers as he explored. Her small hands trailed down his back and he groaned, stopping himself despite himself. 

"Mako – you know I want to … but tonight … here … it's not how your first time should be." Her cheeks reddened.

"You know," she spoke and it was not a question.

Of course he knew. Their minds had been connected not just once, but three times and while Drifting, there was no artifice, no ability to hide or mask. She had witnessed his varied and many sexual encounters – some remembered, some already forgotten by him. The numerous Jaeger Flies who had swarmed around him and his brother during their heyday. He didn't have to tell her that they meant nothing to him – she had seen that for herself. Equally empty of emotion and affection was the meaningless sex he had had during his five years in self-imposed exile. 

In turn, while amongst her memories, he had experienced a life dedicated to learning, study and duty – one in which there had been no time for romance or sex. Not that there hadn't been attraction. He'd seen and felt the flash of attraction she had felt for him – sharp, intense and completely unexpected. He wasn't going to mock her for it because it mirrored his own desire for her.

There were so many things he wanted to tell her. Part of him knew that there was no point – of what use were words when they had seen inside each others thoughts, seen each other through the other's eyes and knew everything that the other person felt … But words were still important and they still had their place, even for people who had been in each other's heads. He still needed words to tell her that she was in his soul now.

"I don't know what lies ahead, Mako … I haven't got a goddamned clue what I'm going to be doing tomorrow … where I'm going – what the hell does a Jaeger pilot do when there are no more Jaegers or kaiju ...? I just know that I want my future to be with you," he told her.

Mako nodded, her hand cupping his cheek as she stared into his steady blue eyes that were almost black in the darkness. "Yes … yes .. I feel the same," she assured him. "We are a team."

Her hands pulled his t-shirt over his head and her lips traced over the scars on his broad chest, lingering and comforting. His breath caught in his throat and despite himself, he bent down, his mouth hovering a mere inch above hers. His hand slid over her jaw to the back of her neck and his fingers slid into her hair and pulled her to meet his mouth.

She sighed against his mouth and returned the kiss eagerly. The kiss was slow, lingering and made her toes curl. Her nipples hardened against his bare chest and she felt an almost unbearable ache building up between her thighs. 

“Mako," he whispered.

"Yes?"

"You know how I said we should wait?" he asked her in a strained voice.

He didn’t wait for an answer, instead he resumed devouring her lips, pressing kisses over her jaw-line and down her slender throat.

"You've changed your mind," she said with a knowing smile and then there was no more talking after that as they learned that they didn't need the Drift to be so entangled that they were like one …


End file.
